Media Release: More bad news for Marvel Comics fans as new rumors suggest that the two Fantastic Four comics will be put on hiatus because of the new Fox Studios Josh Trank movie. According to Bleeding Cool, Marvel is putting Fantastic Four and Ultimate Fantastic Four on hold because they don’t want to help promote the new Fox Studios film – as Marvel Comics is owned by Disney, which owns Marvel Studios and The Avengers movies.
It’s said the members of the FF will still appear in the comics, but not in their own titles. The report even goes so far to state that artwork featuring the Fantastic Four is being taken down at the Marvel offices, and a reported artist who does work for Upper Deck says he was specifically asked not to use Fantastic Four characters which also includes Dr Doom, Galactus, Silver Surfer, Skrulls, etc (i.e. Fox Studios owned characters).
Not one member of the Fantastic Four was featured on the recent Marvel Comics 75th Anniversary poster as well. Furthermore, it’s also reported that Marvel Comics is doing a similar approach with their X-Men characters, though as they are too popular to outright cancel, Marvel is promoting other titles over the X-Men and even pushing the Inhumans as a replacement.
It’s said Marvel CEO and largest Disney shareholder Ike Perlmutter is all behind this as he takes things personally; also that Marvel doesn’t have a great relationship with Fox like they do with Sony for Amazing Spider-Man.
The new Fox Studios Fantastic Four movie is currently filming and has a June 19, 2015 release starring starring Miles Teller as Reed Richards, Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm, Jamie Bell as Ben Grimm and Kate Mara as Sue Storm. Update: Comic Book Resources has confirmed with multiple sources that a hiatus for the Fantastic Four property is planned. End Media Release
Marvel studios is in a changing mode right now. They want badly to bring all their comic book print property to the film so they can make money and use them in Marvel Entertainment owned by Disney Studios, but they can’t because they sold the film rights to other studios to some of their characters and can’t use them. Spider-Man and related characters to him are part of Sony Pictures. X-Men and Fantastic Four 20th Century Fox owns the movie rights and as long as Sony and Fox honor the production contract deadlines they can keep the characters to make films.
Sure Marvel/Disney can offer the profits of 2 or 3 films to get them back but that could run in the billions. Disney wants profits not expenses and they are making plenty money with the characters they are using now. (Remember :The Avengers Movie) The best way is to get character rights back is after one of the other studios looses money in film making and sells them back at a discount. They are hoping by shunning the Fantastic Four in print that that will influence the box office of the reboot of FF in 2015. Marvel has not confirmed or denied this but it could very well be the case with millions to be made in film releases. Fox Studios is hopping to make the new Fantastic Four reboot profitable. That is assured if they get the box office numbers that X-Men : Days of Future Past has which right now is Worldwide: $500,200,000.
So boys and girls, movie goers and comic book readers that’s how it works in the world of superhero entertainment. Sometimes what we want to happen does not because of money. So don’t expect a film Civil War crossover between all the Marvel superheroes and villains too soon. Marvel in the print media is currently building toward a (supposedly) major crossover event called “Time Runs Out” in 2015 that some are speculating will lead to a “reboot” of the entire Marvel Universe (and/or a merger with the “Ultimate” Universe) similar to DC’s “New 52” initiative. If so, an early ending for series like Fantastic Four (which doesn’t sell especially well as a comic, while X-Men does) could also be part of the lead-in for that. This complicates the picture of the future Marvel Universe which is in flux because of the broken Multiverse and the Time in general. But admit it that is why you love the comic world. It is so interesting to read and watch on the big and little screen. Stay with Comics Talk and we will be there with you to bring commentary and news. Stay tuned comic faithful for more. 🙂 Walt